by Aria Ford
In the silence of the kitchen, we sat and ate breakfast for supper. I watched him across the table and knew that I had never felt so happy.
He was half-dressed, the warm light from the kitchen lamp lighting that lean, hard body. I couldn’t stop smiling as I stole glances at him. He was so stunning. I had always known that, but here in this little place, it seemed so intimate—just the two of us—that I noticed it all the more.
He caught me looking and grinned.
I laughed.
We finished supper and he stood and cleared the dishes, then stood behind me and touched my arm lightly. I turned.
“Come on,” he said. I felt his voice right inside me and I sighed and let myself drown in those compelling brown eyes.
“I think I like the sound of that.”
When he got me upstairs again and into our bed, I found that, as we made slow, passionate love, that I did indeed like the sound of that, very much indeed. We spent hours recalling the different things that gave each other pleasure. It was amazing.
I must have drifted off to sleep, because when I woke up he was on his back, his profile outlined by pale light shining through the window. Outside, the sea was dark, the sand pale and shadowy. The only sounds were the gentle sigh of the sea, far down the shoreline, and his breathing. And a cricket, trilling somewhere outside the window in the small garden, just behind the compact wooden fence.
I didn’t know when I had been so contented in my life.
CHAPTER 18: KERRY
Next morning, I woke to the sound of the sea. I rolled over with a smile of bliss on my face. I lay on my side and listened to the hushing sound of waves on the bank. I could hear another sound, mixed in with it. A louder, more insistent rolling sound.
I opened my eyes. The sunshine was streaming in through the net curtains, which hung a little back, as if tousled by the air’s motion. I rolled over. I was alone in the bed. The sound was, I discovered, coming up the stairs. I stood and walked over to the edge.
“Brett?”
He was just coming out of the kitchen, a towel round his waist.
“Honey,” he smiled. “I was just coming upstairs. Go on, lie down.” He added this last with a teasing look that shot straight through my body, making my heart race.
“Oh?” I said, feeling flushed and quite aroused. “What’s that?” I added, raising a hand to my ear to indicate the noise.
“Just put the kettle on for coffee,” he said.
“Oh!” I flushed warmly. “That is service.”
He grinned. “Well, I do like to be of service to you.”
I blushed and he laughed. I lay down on the bed and he slipped across the covers lithely to join me. I felt his arms grip me from behind and his body pressed against mine as he kissed me.
I sighed and rolled onto my back so he could kiss me properly.
He stroked his hands down my naked body and we made love.
“Shower?” I said after a while. My bones were disjointed with bliss, and I felt like a big boneless mass of pleasure. He smiled.
“I guess I should go finish that coffee,” he recalled.
I laughed. “Oh, heck! I forgot about the coffee.”
“Me too.”
I showered, feeling the warm water and the pleasant-scented steam seep into me. I was relaxed and happy and looking forward to breakfast.
We had coffee at the dining-table, overlooking the sea. I leaned forward and studied it. I was aware of his closeness to me, his foot resting beside mine. I watched the sea spark and heard the gulls and knew I couldn’t be happier.
I also knew that I wouldn’t be content unless we had sorted this mess out. I looked at him sitting there, his beautiful face lit with the sunshine, and knew that I couldn’t live with the thought of him being killed one day. We had to do something, right now.
“Brett?”
“Yes?” he asked softly. I smiled as he turned to face me, the sunshine making those wonderful green eyes a bright blaze of emerald. He was so handsome it made my heart ache sometimes just to look at him.
“We need to do something about this.”
He sighed.
“I know. I wish we could just forget, but…”
“I can’t live with the thought that something might happen to you,” I murmured.
He smiled. “Oh, Kerry,” he said.
I reached across and took his hand. We sat like that silently for a while. I tried to think of what we could do, but so far the plan eluded me.
“Breakfast,” I said.
He chuckled. “I don’t know if we have anything in the cupboards.”
“I’m going to look.”
I managed to find some basic supplies—there was milk in the fridge, and someone had thoughtfully left us some muesli. It hadn’t been opened and I presumed it had been left there for us. I took it to the table.
While we ate, I thought some more. My head cleared a bit with the meal and the coffee and I had an idea.
“You must know where these people are, I mean in Miami?” I asked.
He shook his head. Swallowed his breakfast and dabbed at his lips with a serviette. I tried to focus on what he was saying and not on the warm, delicious memories of the previous night.
“No,” he said. “I mean, I know where I used to get the stuff from, but as to where it came from or who the dealer worked for, I had no idea.”
“Mm,” I said. My idea had been to try and scare them in turn—get the police on them or something.
“What were you thinking?” He asked, looking at me with a frown.
“I was thinking that, if we knew where they were, we could put pressure on them ourselves,” I said.
I supposed it was a bit wild, but it had suddenly occurred to me that they had far more reason to be worried than we did. So far, they were the ones doing the illegal stuff, not us—at least not anymore.
“That’s a good idea,” he said slowly. “If we could do that, maybe they’d stop this.”
I nodded, flushed as he turned admiring eyes on me. “We don’t have enough information, though,” I sighed. “So it won’t work. Unless we can find them or something.”
“Maybe we can,” he said slowly.
I frowned at him. “Brett?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, with a frown between his own brows. “When I do, I’ll tell you.”
“As long as this isn’t anything to do with you putting yourself in danger,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I could handle that.” I knew that look. He wasn’t the sort of person who took a lot of care about his own safety. I didn’t like the thought of him out looking for danger.
“I don’t want anything to happen to me either,” he said with a soft smile. “Believe me. Or to you.”
We sat there quietly for a while.
“I think I know what we can do,” he said slowly.
“You do?” I smiled at him.
“Yes.”
We talked. By the time we had finished talking, the sun was higher in the sky and it was almost midday.
When we had a plan we could both agree on, I pushed back my chair wearily and stood.
“Lunchtime,” I declared solemnly.
He laughed.
“I think, my sweet, that is a great plan. Unfortunately, I also think we have eaten all the food in the house just now.”
“Well, then,” I said, “we shall have to find more.”
He grinned at my light, formal tone. “Well, then! Allow me to escort you to the supermarket, milady,” he said, getting into the game.
We were both laughing by the time we went upstairs to get ready.
We had lunch at a sandwich-stall, and I stood there looking out over the sea and feeling like I did when I was a girl on beach holidays. I was so happy. So free.
We looked through the small village supermarket for breakfast for the next two days and enough to keep us going through dinner and tomorrow. Then we went home again.
Brett sighed. “It’s so lovely here with you,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed.
We both looked at each other a little wistfully. Our plans had been laid, though. And it seemed that, after all, we would be taking some time away from our little haven here.
But not for long, we had promised each other. Not for long.
I had to text my mother to explain that I would be fully-engaged until next week Friday. I hoped that it would be as simple as that and would only take a week to get sorted out. I hoped that nothing would go wrong in that time. It was a dangerous plan, and a daring one. But it might just work. And it was the only plan we had.
I just didn’t want anything to happen to him. Or to me. Not now, when we had just found each other after so long.
CHAPTER 19: BRETT
I asked Kerry to check my shoulder. It was starting to itch. I had a feeling this was a good thing. I recalled, dimly, that the doctor had made an appointment for me and now I wouldn’t be there.
“How is it?” I asked. I was sitting in the bathroom on a stool we’d brought in from the bedroom and she was looking at my shoulder with a little frown.
“Um…better,” she said, and gently reached out and pressed the edge with a slim fingertip. It hurt.
“Does that hurt?” she asked.
“Yes!” I said.
“Oh.”
“What does that mean?”
She frowned. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing. I think maybe we should try and get hold of a doctor while we’re away.”
I nodded. “We could go to my old doctor,” I suggested quickly. “In fact, that’s a good idea.”
For the moment, at least, we were returning to Miami.
“It was nice of your coach to agree to lend us a place,” Kerry said.
I nodded. I hadn’t expected it. In the last few days, I had contacted all sorts of people to ask for help, and it amazed me that they had all reached out with so much care. I hadn’t expected it. My old coach had been only too happy to hear I had come back to Miami. When I’d mentioned to him that I was looking for a place to stay, he’d offered us a small apartment in one of the quieter areas of town.
“It’s perfect,” I agreed.
The place was quiet, but it was also not too far away from some of the shadier parts of town, and that suited us just right. We would move in that evening.
“Well, maybe,” Kerry nodded. “But I do think that, before anything else, we should get someone to look at that shoulder.”
“I agree,” I said.
We had packed our things and after another coffee we headed down to see if we could catch the bus. I had texted Sherrill that morning to say we were leaving for a while and she had agreed to come and fetch the key.
We took the bus back to Miami airport.
Kerry slept on my shoulder during the drive and I couldn’t help that every time I looked at her, I wondered if I was mad, doing this. It was dangerous. It was wild. But if we didn’t try and sort these people out, what would happen? We could either try and leave the country, or live looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. And neither of us wanted either of those things.
We had to try.
We arrived at the small apartment in the early hours of the afternoon. As soon as we’d moved in, we decided to put our plan into operation.
Our plan involved being as public as possible. First, we needed to dress the part.
“Right,” I said, looking at Kerry. She had dressed in the most eye-catching way possible—a green top and tight jeans, hair loose and red. Anyone who saw her would remember her for her looks and that stunning color.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. I was still sufficiently-ripped to be me, the ex-athlete, if a little skinnier than I had been. I had combed my hair and dressed in a tight white shirt and jeans. No sunglasses—I wanted everyone who saw us to recognize me and know I was back in town.
We had taken the afternoon to settle in, see the doctor and do some shopping. Now, it was seven o’ clock, and we were ready to go.
“Right,” she said. She was standing there resplendently. If she was nervous, it was almost impossible to guess. I was nervous myself. I swallowed hard, closed my eyes a moment. Opened them.
“Let’s go.”
We headed down in the elevator and out onto the street.
Finding my way around my old hang-out spots was easy—even after five years, I could remember the way there as if it had been written onto the matter of my brain somehow. I was soon heading down the street toward the club I used to go to when I was in town. The club where I used to get my hits.
It was early, and a weekday, but there were still people in there. It was one of those clubs that pretended respectability, and managed quite well, but still had that dangerous, shadowy undertone that suggested the place was frequented by unscrupulous sorts. Which, in all fairness, it was.
The bouncer stopped us. I stared at him.
“Shane?” I stared.
He grinned. “No way!”
“Hell!” I laughed. “It is you! I can’t believe it!”
“Brett!” He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” I agreed. It had been five years. I couldn’t quite believe he was still here. And that I remembered him. And he me.
“Hi,” Kerry said shyly. I saw him staring at her in astonishment.
Good, I thought grimly. I wanted to laugh, even though it was part of the plan. And I also felt defensive. Part of me felt challenged by that look, though I knew it was silly of me.
Kerry grinned at me, and her smile was reassuring. I felt like we were both working together in this. I smiled back.
In the club, it was dark, the lighting coming mainly from some multicolored lights on the wall. There was music in the background and people sat at low tables or at the bar, talking and drinking. The room smelled of brandy, cologne and dust.
I looked round. I couldn’t see anyone I recognized, but I knew that if we waited for a bit, the crowd who were looking for their first hit—or their next—of the evening would arrive. And that meant that we would get a chance to get a good look at the dealer.
And he at us.
I walked to the bar, feeling a strange fluttering in my chest. It was weird, being here in this place where I had been so many years ago. I half-expected the then-Brett to be sitting at my place, to look at me as I came in. If he had been there at my old place at the bar, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I sat down at the bar and she sat down beside me.
The barman came over. I stared. “Does Luke still work here?” I asked.
The young man frowned. “Luke Reese? Yeah. Luke!”
I stared as he came out from round the back. He was a solidly-built guy, an ex-sportsman like myself. He had a hard, aggressive face and I had never known exactly how much older than me he was, except that he was older. And mean.
He grinned at me.
“You!” he yelled.
I laughed. I shook his hand, feeling delighted. I hadn’t expected to be remembered by two people—but, then, I had remembered them. Kerry grinned at him.
“Kerry?” I said, “this is Luke. I knew him a while back.”
Luke looked at Kerry as if she had just stepped out of a fairytale. I laughed.
“Pleased to meet you,” he stammered. “What can I get for you two? Come on, Taylor—go and do something! I’ll fix these people a drink.”
I laughed as the younger barman was sent off to do something else. I frowned at Kerry. I didn’t want either of us getting too drunk—not only didn’t we like it, but it would interfere with the plan.
“Um, spirit cooler?” I suggested.
His brows went up, but he went off to go and see what they had.
We sat and drank cheap spirit coolers and tried to look like we were enjoying it. I made a face at Kerry and she laughed.
“Well, people are noticing,” she whispered.
“Good,”
I said.
“Should we stay till ten?” she asked.
“Good idea,” I agreed.
She took a sip and leaned against me, and I smiled into her warm eyes.
“Well,” she said, “Since we are here to make a scene, maybe we should make one.”
“Kerry!” I chuckled. As it was, all she meant was kissing, but all the same it took on a delicious urgency when it felt as if we were doing it for an audience.
We stayed until ten. As we left, I noticed someone at a low table, watching us. He was, unlike the other patrons, marginally more awake. He was also sober. He kept a low profile, but not in a way that made him stand out.
And he was watching us.
When we got out into the street, I turned to look at Kerry. She looked at me.
“Did it work?” she asked.
I nodded. “Probably.”
“Good.”
We walked out into the street. I was grateful that we had drunk sparingly, and that the night air was cool and fresh. All the same, it was difficult to find our way back to the apartment. By the time we got there, flushed and laughing, the door shut behind us, I was euphoric with relief.